“I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain. One always finds one’s burden again.”
A tree falls in the forest.
No one is around.
Epitaph reads: “Life
does not require
witness.”
I dream about a wolf
that is lying in the grass
instead of hunting. I
kill it. I wake up
in blood and fur.
Even my grief, I admit,
has taste. I turn towards empty
space, and ask how I can better
hold it.
Something about entropy
and all the arrangements matter
never took. Something about how
vines shape their bodies around
whatever they are given
to hold.
Fruit does not sweeten
due to hunger. Hang as low
and as heavy as you
wish. Ripen past
the mercy of being
eaten.
Swell.
Burst.
Fall.
Does anyone hear?
Does this death
count?
Something about the second law
of thermodynamics. Something about
trees letting their damage be, sealing
them away within
new growth.
I examine the many rings
I’ve built around absence,
and wonder how it is different
from healing.
Bigger than everything
that has tried to take me down,
I wonder how my fall
would sound.
I wonder who
would hear.
Cierra Lowe, 2026